


All the Queen's Women and All the Queen's Men

by Ruuger



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Post-Movie(s), Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/pseuds/Ruuger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orphans, every one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Queen's Women and All the Queen's Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redleather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redleather/gifts).



It didn't rain at the funeral. Bond appreciated the lack of over-sentimentality from the nature, at least, as he listened to the endless search-and-replace eulogies frompoliticians who'd have been first in line to crucify M just a few week earlier. Next to him Moneypenny stared into the distance, her face carefully formed into an emotionless mask. There were no tears in her eyes, but Bond had not expected any. _We are what you made us_ , he silently told to the casket as it was lowered into the grave.

As the crowds began to disperse, he gave Moneypenny a silent nod, and then slipped away, opting not to join the others in the unofficial wake that he knew Tanner was bound to organise in some teeth-rottingly quaint pub where M herself would never have set a foot in.

He flagged a black cab at the street corner but then waved it away, deciding to walk instead. He was still on forced leave while the internal investigation was ongoing, and in the current situation a morning without a hangover would have been a morning wasted.

The bar he chose lacked the air of patriotic Britishness that most pubs in London held onto to attract tourists, but as he sat down in front of the bar, he nevertheless found himself staring into a badly printed copy of the _Fighting Temeraire_. There was a string of dusty fairy lights hanging above it, and as they swung in the gust of wind created by the opening door, for a moment Bond could see the flames at Skyfall reflected in the nicotine-stained waves.

He was on his second shot of vodka when he sensed a movement in the corner of his eye as someone took a seat next to him. He knocked back the last dregs of his drink and gestured at the barman for another one.

"Maybe you were right," said a voice next to him. "Look at it like this, and it really is just a bloody big ship."

Bond turned around in his chair to face Q, who was perched on the barstool next to him, a bottle of imported beer raised to his lips.

"Did Mallory send you?"

Q shook his head as he lowered the bottle. "Mallory is busy playing father to his men at the Rose. When I left, he was one beer away from challenging the whole double-oh section to a game of darts."

Bond couldn't help the small tug of his lips as he tried to imagine M - the old M - doing the same. 

"It won't be the same now that she's gone," Q said, as if reading his mind.

Bond turned to look at him again. The boy looked even younger now that he had looked when they'd first met at the National Gallery. His dark suit was vintage rather than tailored, slightly too wide for his narrow frame, and his hair was a mess of curls more fitting to a schoolboy than a man working for the government. But there was no innocence in his eyes. Not anymore. Underneath the irrelevant facade and sardonic quirk of an eyebrow Bond recognised the same guilt that burned inside himself. 

It had been a ridiculous mistake that had allowed Silva to escape from the containment cell - a man who boasted about being able to take down the world in his pajamas should have known better than to let Silva's computer infect their system. Q had underestimated Silva, they all had, and it had been that arrogance which had been their downfall. But for all the guilt Q must have felt, it hadn't been his arrogance that had ultimately killed M, but her own. Or perhaps Bond's. 

"How do you live with it?"

Q's voice still held the same, almost flippant note, but his eyes were dark and defiant, as he held Bond's gaze and took another long draught of his beer.

Bond shrugged. Any advice he could give would be nothing but empty platitudes, regurgitated words from the army of Queen's psychologists he'd spoken with at M's behest since he'd joined the double-0 section. 

"One day at a time," he finally said. 

"Just lay back, and think of England."

There was a flash of memory at that, of the touch of Silva's hands on his thighs, of the faces of all the men and women he'd slept with in the Queen's name. _What makes you think this is my first time?_

"Something like that." Another empty shot glass, another small gesture to get it re-filled. "If you aren't here to play my nanny, how did you find me?"

"I have an app on my phone that uses a GPS tracker to show the location of all double-0 agents at any given time, and you were the only one in London who wasn't at the Rose." He was quiet for a second, then added: "That was a joke."

He was quiet for a while, his thumbnail idly tearing at the label on his beer, before he continued. 

"I read your file. Mallory asked me to go through M's..." He paused, and corrected himself. "... _her_ computer and accounts today to make sure they hadn't been compromised, and your personal file was among the ones she'd recently opened. I remembered your address, and after that, guessing where you were heading was easy." He held Bond's gaze for a moment. "Is it worth it?" 

They were a family of orphans, as M had said, and Bond suspected that Q had only just began to understand it. The department psychologists could listen all they wanted, but they would never understand, could never give any kind of answers. 

Bond again reached for his drink, but his glass was empty, and the barman was nowhere to be seen. He thought of Dryden's right-hand man back in that bathroom, the sounds of struggle echoing from the tiled walls, the warm slickness of blood between his fingers and the metallic taste of it on his tongue. He thought of Severine and Silva, one that he'd killed and the other he'd fucked, and how it could have just as well have been the other way around. He'd given away his body and soul for his country, piece by piece, but it had never been his to give, but hers.

"No," he said, and pushed the empty glass away. "It's not."

But he still did it. For the country, for the Queen, for her. And twenty years from now, someone would ask the same question from Q, and he would give the same answer - only the pronouns would change. Men, women, killing, fucking, living, dying, it was all the same. Bond could tell him to leave, to walk away while he still could, but he knew it was already too late. Nothing left to do, but to lay back and think of England.

Bond tossed some money on the counter and stood up, walking away without a word. A moment later he could hear Q push back his chair and follow him.


End file.
